Pullman Factory pics????

"mindesign" wrote

I think you would have to be more specific than that as they were built in various places from memory, with the Metro-Camm being one of them.

John.

Steve,

I know that there is a chapter in the Dow and Lacy book on Midland Coaches on the Pullman coaches used on the Midland Railway. It's a while since I've read it but I think the original Pullman cars were imported from the US, then the Midland took over and built its own - probably in its own workshops. If you are looking for pictures of the interiors of railway coach building works, then there are several in Bob Essery's book on Midland Coaches.

Also, I don't think there were that many Pullman coaches in the UK so you might find that it was never worthwhile to have a factory purely for the construction of the Pullman coaches.

I'll dig through the Dow and Lacy, and Essery books to see what's there, but anything in them will be from the Victorian and Edwardian period, and the construction of Pullman cars continued well into the 20th century..

Jim.

thanks for the info and offer!

I guess I am interested in Hornby's offering of Pullman Coaches and may have wrongly assumed they were British and actually made.

Also, I imagine any carriage works would do as a Pullman factory - I just don't have any pics of that type of thing at all

cheers

Steve

Steve,

I did a quick Google around this morning when writing the first message and it looks as though most of the Pullmans built in the 20th century were built in the UK, and at existing carriage and wagon works. In the early days in the 19th century and early 20th century, the Pullman cars were supplied from the US, either ready built, or as a kit of parts.

I'm not sure of the lease arrangements with the Pullman company. I think I remember that the railway companies in the 19th century wanted a bigger piece of the Pullman style action and either went in to direct competition with their own rolling stock, or negotiated a better deal in using the Pullman name. You could argue that the appearance of the Pullman coaches on British railways in the 19th century probably was one of the biggest incentives for the development of the comfort and opulence in the passenger rolling stock of a lot of the British companies - the Midland, LNWR and the GWR particularly.

I do remember you could sample Pullman style travel relatively cheaply since there used to be a London (Kings Cross) to Glasgow via Edinburgh Pullman train where you could travel Pullman from Edinburgh to Glasgow if you paid a small fee.

Jim.

If you are talking about British Pullmans, how about the Pullman Co. main workshop at Preston Park Brighton - nothing more than the old LBSC locomotive shed just south of Preston park station (were the Cliftonvile curve to Hove left the Brighton main line).

It is a six road shed, tapering from about 2/3 to two full length roads from about 2/3 it's length, the longest roads held (IIRC 6 coaches). There were also offices and other workshops to the rear (north) end. The building is still intact and photographs do indeed exist of the building, both in Pullman days and it's life since.

If you can source the book "Pullman Craftsmen" - Life at Preston Park Works 1947-1963 ISBN 0 904733 50 5 this has many B&W photo's of the works and Pullmans in various states of repair.

My flights from Germany during my army days Meant I arrived at Kings cross just in time for the Yorkshire Pullman I paid 2/6 P extra on top of my pass and got coffee and biscuits free

I only travelled twice by Pullman - the Brighton Belle in 1961 and the Yorkshire Pullman from Wakefield to KX in 1964 or 65.

I take it you mean UK Pullmans, and not the Pullman works in the US?

The auto pilot on aircraft was known as George from an advert which urged the traveller to 'Let George do the driving' (George Pullman set up the company) - But you probably already knew that

Many thanks everyone for the insight and information

as mentioned, it is the British Pullman carriages that have my interest (though if I were modelling US profile, I would LOVE to have some of their Pullmans too!!!)

I never made the connection between autopilots and the George Ad as I have never seen it - I would love to have that emblazoned across the side of the factory as a billboard so passengers riding past on one of the "bone shakers" see it and yearn for a ride in the best.

:)

Steve

In North America, all Pullman porters were called "George".

George was not a very nice man to work for, if you were a porter, they were not paid overtime for example. However, for a black man, landing a Pullman porter job was something to aim for as the pay, while not great and the hours could be long, was better than most could hope for.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Hi Jerry

thanks for posting!

Preston Park Brighton sounds like a great place to model..... any pics greatly appreciated

Just did a Google on this works and pulled up this -

Am I right in thinking the factory was built at least partially from corrugated iron? I imagine a range of materials would've been used over time.

Steve

...

If you wish to pass some water, Kindly call the Pullman porter; He'll place a vessel in the vestibule. If the porter isn't here, Then try the platform at the rear; The one up front is likely to be full.

For a dollar and a quarter You can have the Pullman porter Turn the lights down low. Off we're gonna shuffle - Shuffle off to Buffalo.

You'll have to search for images, as I said the building is basically an old LBSC loco shed adapted for use by the Pullman Car Co., perhaps post a request on the news:uk.railway group, all my own pictures / plans of the place have gone missing due to events beyond my control (the organisation using the building for preservation collapsed back in the early 1990's).

No, that link and the images are nothing to do with the place [1], google probably scored that page due to the mention of 'Pullman' (or what ever your search terms were), the building is mainly off hard yellow brick with the floor (and pit floors) laid with black engineering brick, in the days since the Pullman Car Co. took over the building there were timber structures added to the West side (1/3 the length of the building or there about) and a brick and corrugated iron 'shack' (in the shape of the lower part of a capital 'A') added to the North end of the building - this was used for brass cleaning (hot acid dipping).

IIRC, in 4mm scale the building will be about 10ft in length, you will probably need something like 20ft once you model the access tracks etc. As I say, the building is still in existence and still connected to the rail system (the building is blocked in by railway lines to the South, East and North whilst the West side is faced by both a head shunt from the Brighton carriage wash plant and a c. 70ft chalk cutting face, the ONLY access to the building was via either the railway of a wooden stair-way down the cutting face. Many of the BR / National collection of preserved steam loco's were stored in the building in the early 1970's, prior to the building of the NRM, due to this lack of non railway access....

[1] the buildings shown in the pictures are those at the Bluebell railway, nothing what so ever to do with the old Pullman company or the railway building just south of Preston Park station, Brighton.

Steve, those are pics of *Sheffield Park*, home of the Bluebell Railway. Mind you, not a million miles from Brighton. Of course, Sheffield Park is nowhere near Sheffield, any more than Preston Park is near Preston.

These are the only pics of Preston Park I could find with Google:

There is Ygroup for Pullman interests:

You could join them and ask, perhaps?

Cheers,

Steve (the other one)

The prototype scales to 10ft in length, so the model has to be 10ft in length? Why?

The Preston Park works look to be situated on the outside of a curve, with a very prominent facade across the short axis, and a long axis of repeating segments. I'd have thought it perfect just to model 3 or 4ft of the length, stopping against the back wall, especially if one can put something on the inside curve to restrict the viewing angles.

Cheers, Steve

done ..... and done

many thanks!

Steve

Replaying via mindesign as Steve W's message hasn't shown up on my server.

Cheers for that URL, vary sad to see the fire damage, it is above the office accommodation and has probably done considerable damage inside the building.... :~(